


with the fear of a child

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Gen, the Della talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 17:53:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12090288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: Donald's life is a mess, he's got three sons, and he doesn't have time to date.Also, he kinda sucks at small talk.





	with the fear of a child

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure what this is or how it happened, but I have Thoughts about HDL's childhood.   
> The title came from He Lives in You from the Lion King.

Donald Fauntleroy Duck did have friends. Admittedly, he didn’t have a lot of time to spend with them, given that he was now raising triplets, but they existed. He made a point at least once in a while to meet up with them. All… two of them.

Donald met Mickey and Goofy in high school, and then they’d gone to college together. Now they were adults, with real lives and real jobs. Mickey was running a business with his longtime-sweetheart-never-wife Minnie, Goofy had a 5-year-old son and a wife who never seemed to be around, and Donald – well, Donald was in the middle of the lengthy and unnecessarily complicated process of adopting his sister’s 18-month-old sons.

“So Don, Minnie wants to know if you have time to swing by the store sometime next Tuesday,” Mickey said over sandwiches one carefully scheduled meetup.

“Let me guess, her friend – uh, what was it again, Poppy? Lily? Some kind of flower, right? – is swinging by the store and she’s hoping I’ll ‘run into her,’” Donald replied flatly.

“Her name is Daisy,” Mickey corrected by way of agreement.

Donald sighed. “I have _toddlers_.”

“I dunno, Donnie, some women think that’s appealing,” Goofy said.

“There are three of them!” said Donald. “Even if I wanted to date – which I _don’t_ , again, toddlers – does Minnie really think I have time? For literally anything?”

“I’ll take that as a no,” said Mickey. “Hey, uh, Donald, you doin’ okay?”

“Yeah, of course, why?”

Mickey and Goofy looked at each other, but before either of them could say anything to their clearly frazzled friend, there was a cry from the other room.

“Gimme a sec, guys, if I don’t get Louie he’ll start a chain reaction,” Donald said, and hopped up to run into the boys’ bedroom to keep Louie from waking his brothers.

He returned with a grumpy, green-clad baby on his hip. “Mick, do you think – if I just go meet this girl, will it get Minnie off my back for a while?”

“It’ll certainly get her off mine,” said Mickey.

Donald bounced Louie. “What do you say, Lou, should we meet this girl?” Louie looked skeptical. “Same. But we’re gonna do it anyway!”

Goofy laughed, Mickey rolled his eyes.

Before too much longer, Goofy had to go pick up Max from kindergarten and Mickey had to get to a meeting. They left with a plan to meet up again in a few weeks at Goofy’s place.

A few days later, Donald dutifully stopped by Mickey and Minnie’s shop midafternoon, the boys in tow.

“Donald!” Minnie exclaimed just as the door opened. “It’s so good to see you!”

Donald took a deep breath, bracing himself. “Hi, Minnie. Long time, no see.”

“Too long,” Minnie agreed. She wiggled her fingers at the boys in their stroller. “Hey, you know, by complete coincidence my good friend Daisy is here! Why don’t you come over and say hi?”

“Sure, why not,” replied Donald. He squared his shoulders and followed Minnie toward the registers, where sure enough a pretty duck was chatting with Mickey.

“Daze!” Minnie called.

Daisy turned around, looking just as resigned as Donald felt. Donald immediately felt better about the whole thing.

“Daisy, this is our old friend Donald,” continued Minnie, her hand on his shoulder. “We went to high school together. Donnie, this is my best friend Daisy – we were roommates freshman year of college!”

“Hi,” Daisy said, sounding remarkably not forced. “Are these your sons?”

“They’re my – uh, my sister’s,” Donald said, wincing. Why did he have to mention Della? Behind Daisy, Mickey had put his face in his hands and Minnie was taking deep, calming breaths.

“Oh, are you babysitting?” asked Daisy, brightening a little. “I have nieces about the same age, I sit for them all the time. They’re a bit of a handful at that age.”

“You’re telling me,” Donald said before he could think better of it. “They can reach the doorknobs now!”

Mickey looked like he was laughing now, but the boys were the one thing Donald could talk about for hours, so if he was gonna have to pretend to date this girl to make Minnie happy it was probably for the best they got started on this now. Daisy didn’t seem to mind, she was smiling.

“Do you sit for them often?” she asked.

Donald wilted a little. “I’m adopting them.”

“Oh,” replied Daisy. She didn’t ask why.

Donald, though still determined not to date, was being more and more won over by the moment.

“I’m an accountant,” he blurted, desperate to change the subject.

Mickey looked like he was going to need to sit down soon, he was laughing so hard. Minnie just stared at him, somewhere between shocked and perplexed.

Daisy, bless her, laughed.

\--

Daisy and Donald didn’t date, but they let people think they were. It was easy, and to be completely honest Donald needed more friends. Daisy convinced him to get out of the houseboat more, to relax a little, to smile a little more. Much as he hated to admit it, Donald was pretty grateful Minnie had forced them to meet.

She didn’t even ask the question. He knew she was curious – he could see it in her eyes when they took his nephews (sons?) to the park to play with her nieces – but she never asked. Sure, a lot of people assumed something terrible had happened to Della, and that it was a sensitive subject, and that meant that they usually couldn’t resist. Somehow, with Daisy, Donald had lucked out and found the only person on the planet who had the good sense to leave well enough alone.

It was kinda nice.

\--

All things considered, Donald’s boys grew up pretty normal. The older they got, the more time Donald had to be a real person, which was pretty great. He may have cried on Huey, Dewey, and Louie’s first day of school, but definitely not the second one.

Donald found time, when he could, to hang out with Mickey and Goofy (though Max never seemed particularly happy to play with the triplets) or have lunch with Minnie or Daisy. He never quite felt like he could keep up with his kids or his jobs or the world, but he made it work.

And then – well, then the whole mess with Glomgold and Atlantis happened, and Donald’s houseboat blew up, and suddenly he and his son-nephews were living with his uncle who he hadn’t spoken to since Della –

After Launchpad got the houseboat situated in one of the manor’s four outdoor pools, Donald called Daisy.

“Hey, Daze, are you free for lunch?”

“After what I just saw on the news?” replied Daisy. “You better believe I’m free for lunch.”

Before he knew it, Donald was sitting across from Daisy at a restaurant down the street from her office.

“You have questions,” he guessed.

“You called _me_ ,” Daisy reminded him. “Of course I’ve got questions, but you have something to say. Don’t you?”

Donald sighed. “We moved in with my Uncle Scrooge today.”

“I had been wondering how you knew each other,” replied Daisy. “Go on.”

“Well he and I - we – well, he hasn’t seen the boys since they were babies,” Donald continued, looking down at his sandwich. “Not since – Daisy, I’ve never told you why I have Huey, Dewey, and Louie.”

“You haven’t,” agreed Daisy. She didn’t say anything else; just let him pull himself together in his own time.

“My sister and I used to – uh, used to travel with Scrooge,” Donald told his sandwich. He glanced up at Daisy for a second. “We adventured with him. And we, uh, we went with him for Della’s last big adventure after the boys were born – she was gonna settle down a little, her guy wasn’t in the picture anymore, but she wanted to go out one more time.” He paused for a long moment, breathing slowly. “So we left Huey, Dewey, and Louie, with Goofy and his wife for the weekend. Went out with Scrooge. Only Dell – she got lost. We never knew if she was, uh, dead for sure but – well. We couldn’t –“

He choked. Honestly he was surprised he’d made it this long.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Daisy said in a low voice.

Donald shook his head. “I have to – I haven’t told anybody in a long time, and the boys – the boys are gonna want to know soon enough.”

Daisy nodded. “Take your time.”

“We –“ Donald took a deep breath. “We never found her. I blamed Scrooge, Scrooge blamed me… we’re going to have to deal with it sometime, but it’s just such a mess. He stopped adventuring because of that. I – well.”

“Oh, Don.”

Donald shrugged. “It was all a long time ago. But it’s a lot all at once, you know? And I worry –“ he shook his head. “The boys are all tangled up with Scrooge now, too. They idolize him.”

“You’re afraid you’ll lose them, too,” Daisy guessed.

“Well, yeah.”

There wasn’t really anything else to say after that. They parted ways not much later, making a sincere plan to get together again soon.

“And don’t you let me hear about stuff like this from the news again, Donald Duck!”

When Donald returned to the manor that night, was surrounded again by the chaos of his 3 11-year-old sons and the girl they’d adopted as a sister, it was easier to swallow. Easier to remember the fun of growing up with a twin than the pain of losing her.

And anyway, the boys reminded Donald more of Della every day. If only that didn’t worry him so much.


End file.
